Phoenix Ashes (The Landers Saga Book 3)

by Nilsen, Karen

  I shook my head. The man's greed was legendary. He not only owned half of Arlan Forest but a fancy house in Calcors where most of his merchant business took place as well as a huge manor in Torana Province to the west. The noble family who had lived in the manor in Torana had been indebted to Sullay, and he had eventually seized it as collateral. Court gossips speculated that he had had his eye on this particular manor since he was a boy--his family had been peasants on the property. I had to acknowledge that as much as I disliked the man, I had to admire his ability to rise from obscure origins. Rarely had a peasant's son ended up on the king's council. How ironic that he now treated peasants with such wanton cruelty.

  Dipping the pen in the well, I thought for a moment, then . . . a knock at the door disturbed me. “Damn it,” I muttered. I threw down the pen and pushed my chair back. When I opened the door, my steward Randel stood there, and I drew up short. He never interrupted me unless he had a good reason. He had been my servant for a quarter century, since before Merius was born, and it was starting to show. Even the sideburns he grew to hide his hollow cheeks were grizzled, and now his hand always hovered near the unadorned hilt of the practical short sword he wore ever since that assassin had made an attempt on my life a couple years ago.

  “What is it?”

  He held up a stained bit of folded parchment. “Letter from Merius, sir.”

  I took it from him, noting that Merius had used his Landers ring insignia on the wax seal. It was no small gesture, considering he had renounced the Landers name and his inheritance and run off to Sarneth with that witch little over a year ago. The help I had given him in Sarneth had made him realize the value of his name and the protection it could grant Safire. Amazingly, marriage to that unearthly witch had accomplished what I and court training never could--occasional flashes of good sense from my scapegrace son. I shook my head and slit the seal of the letter.

  Dear Father,

  I hope this letter finds you in good health and spirits. Please accept this as my official declaration to resume my duties at court as your son and heir. My promise to resume my duties was contingent upon certain actions from you. As you fulfilled the last of these actions upon your return to Cormalen, I consider all debts between us settled aside from my debt to you for your invaluable aid in Sarneth.

  I glanced up at Randel. “I take it you didn’t find Whitten.”

  He shook his head. “I must have looked through every warehouse and dive between here and Calcors and questioned every rat monger and dock whore I met.”

  “Hmm.” I considered this a moment. “If anyone could find him, you would. You‘re most thorough.”

  “Thank you, sir. I’m sorry I don’t have better news for you.”

  “It’s not your fault. Perhaps he stowed away on a ship or went west to Torana Province. As long as he’s far from here, we should be fine. I trust he’ll at least have the sense to keep his mouth shut, the feckless coward. Merius was still seething when I spoke with him about it--Whitten better hope he doesn’t meet up with him.”

  “It seems Sir Merius inherited your temper, sir,” Randel observed dryly, a rather daring remark for him.

  “I only wish he’d inherited more of my sense,” I snapped, returning to the letter.

  Safire and I will always be grateful for your help in Sarneth. My hope is that the understanding you and I reached in Sarneth will only strengthen in Cormalen and that we can work together peaceably. My responsibilities as a husband and king’s guard have made me appreciate your influence more than perhaps I did previously. I look forward to resuming my place as your heir. I also am grateful for the opportunity to demonstrate my greater ability and maturity by assisting you in the honorable execution of your many offices and duties.

  Your Son and Humble Servant,

  Sir Merius of Landers

  Honorable execution of my many offices? I snorted. Oh, the moral arrogance of youth. Merius did have a certain way with words--he had managed to convey a slur, a threat, and a pledge of fealty (fealty as long as I remained honorable) in one seemingly innocuous phrase. He was more my son than he realized.

  “Are you ready, Randel?” I asked finally, folding the letter and tucking it in my shirt pocket.

  “Ready for what, sir?”

  “To keep an eye on Merius and his wife. I should warn you, they‘re a handful. Lord Toscar is dead and Queen Jazmene is imprisoned on a rock in the middle of the sea because of them. So watch them closely.”

  “As you wish, sir.” Randel paused, hesitating. “You are glad that he’ll be back, then?”

  “Glad?” This one stumped me for a moment--what did the man mean?

  “It’ll mean less work for you, now that he's resumed his duties.”

  “True enough.” Merius was skillful in a wide array of tasks, from balancing ledgers to fighting to playing diplomat to writing letters and treaties. I could order him to perform almost any of my duties and trust he would be able to carry them out with quick wit and an uncanny ability to land on his feet despite a lack of sense. Even considering our constant arguments and his stubborn nature, he had absorbed more of my training than I had ever thought possible. So, yes, I supposed I was glad, whatever that meant.

  “I’ll be relieved to have him and Safire here, where I can keep an eye on them. They seem to fall into trouble everywhere they go, the heedless fools. If that‘s what you mean by glad, I suppose I am.”

  “I’m glad for his return as well, sir.”

  “Why?”

  Randel smiled, a rare event. I’d found the best retainers to be silent men who took life even more seriously than I did, and Randel was no exception. “Sir Merius tips well, sir,” he said finally, still smiling.

  “Indeed--he’s a generous fool, though I daresay you’re one of the few who deserves it. Speaking of tips . . .” I pulled a silver out of my pocket and handed it to him. “Randel, you can return to court. I should be there within the week."

  “Thank you, sir.” Randel tucked the coin away and strode from the chamber, a man who always had a purpose.

  ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

  Calcors, Silmer Province, Eastern Cormalen

  April, 3 years ago

  Lemara the head magistrate of Silmer Province had his official command quarters in Calcors, a bustling port city about an hour-long ride from Landers Hall. Peregrine’s family, the House of Bara, claimed Calcors as home, as did Ronceval Devons, which at least partly explained the ongoing rivalry between Peregrine and Devons in the council chamber. The Calcors harbor, although large, could only hold so many merchant ships, and neither Peregrine nor Devons were the sort who liked to share.

  Provincial king’s guards in green and gold swarmed all over Lemara’s headquarters with a great clomping of boots and the raucous laughter of young men. All of them stopped when I passed and acknowledged me with deferential nods. I relished the spreading waves of respectful silence at my passage up the stairs to Lemara’s office. Even a fool like him had to notice.

  The guard stationed at the door let me pass without warning Lemara, so I caught him unawares at his lunch. He glanced up at my knock and the click of the door latch, sputtering crumbs in his graying black beard. “I told you no interruptions,” he roared before he realized it was me and not his hapless door guard. “Ah, Mordric, I apologize. That hangdog should have announced you. Sullen sort--I’ll have his commission for this insolence. If I’d known you were coming . . .”

  “Good afternoon, Lemara.” Not waiting for his permission, I slid into the empty chair in front of the long table he used as a desk. Stained papers and broken quill pens littered it from end to end, the stains likely from the copious amounts of beer and hard cider he consumed. It was rumored he never drank water--he claimed the water in Calcors swam with pestilence, likely an excuse for him to imbibe ale by the cask. I preferred whiskey myself--quicker results with less. Of course, Lemara had never been the model of efficiency, and why should his drinking be any different? Herrod’s uncle--in fact, the rea
son Lemara was magistrate at all was because of his connection to the king's guard commander Herrod, certainly not because of any real skill on his part. I’d wished countless times in my tenure as provincial minister that Lemara shared more with Herrod than a physical resemblance and a certain surface bluster. That was where the similarity ended, unfortunately.

  “Be kind to your guard,” I continued. “He didn’t have time to announce me. I should have sent word I was planning to visit.”

  Lemara waved his hand. “Nonsense--always glad to see you.” His forced heartiness made me want to smirk, but I kept my face expressionless. He knew damn well that I had surprised him on purpose.

  “As much as I would like to chat, we’re both busy men, so I’ll get to the point. Did you receive my signed summons for Sullay?”

  “Only yesterday,” he lied.

  “That’s odd--I sent it over a week ago.”

  He shrugged. “You know how these message riders are sometimes.”

  “Well, the point is, you have it. Where is it?” My eyes wandered over the heaps of paper, and I couldn‘t help a smirk this time.

  His round face reddened. He pawed at the papers, some drifting to the floor as he grew more frantic. Muttering to himself, he examined this letter and that, finally holding up a piece of parchment with my handwriting on it. “Here it is,” he proclaimed, brandishing it at me as if it were a flag of his relieved triumph.

  “Why hasn’t it been sent to Sullay yet?” I demanded.

  “Well, I just received it the other day . . .”

  “I thought you said yesterday.”

  “I meant yesterday,” he said, on the verge of petulance. “Really, Mordric, I don’t understand the urgency of this. Feyril Styles was only a peasant after all, and no one has been able to prove he wasn’t intending to poach on Sullay’s lands.”

  I sighed inwardly. “If we’re talking about proof, let’s stick to the facts of the matter, shall we? Sullay’s gamekeepers shot Styles on a public road, not on Sullay’s private lands. Because he was shot on a public road in plain view of witnesses, it doesn’t matter what his intentions might have been. He might have been intending to bag every bird in Sullay’s forest for all we know, but the fact is, he wasn’t doing it when he was shot. That makes it murder, Lemara, whatever his intentions, whether he be peasant or prince.”

  “But the gamekeeper shot him, not Sullay . . .”

  “The gamekeepers were acting under Sullay’s orders, and this affair is only the latest in a long string of affronts.”

  “None proven,” Lemara contested. Likely he thought he was being clever, throwing my own words back at me. Lackwit.

  “If you pursued him then as you should have, maybe a few of those incidents would be proven, and Feyril Styles wouldn’t be dead right now.”

  “Damn it, Mordric, I’ll not stand your insults, especially for a poaching, thieving peasant like Styles.”

  “I apologize,” I said, the barest veneer of sincerity concealing my tone. “I’m just tired of mopping up Sullay’s messes, as I’m sure you are. Woe to this province the day he bought that damned forest from His Majesty.”

  Lemara looked on the verge of saying something, then seemed to think the better of it as his already fat cheeks puffed out. He finally exhaled with a reedy whistle. “There may be a delay when I send this to the magistrate in Torana Province--according to the official annals, he’ll have to deliver it as the Sullay’s ancestral home is in Torana.”

  I cocked my head and looked at him narrowly. I had suspected that Lemara’s delay on this might be more than laziness and antipathy for me, but I hadn’t really considered the possibility that he had a secret alliance with Sullay. His odd silence following my apology made me wonder. If Lemara was allied with Sullay, that meant he was likely allied with Peregrine. This explained how Peregrine smuggled cannon powder so brazenly out of Calcors harbor, while Devons had only to sneeze to attract Lemara‘s ire. All Peregrine would have to do was bribe Lemara and not for that much, probably--Lemara was the sort who would sell his honor for a few coppers. Why hadn’t I thought of this before? It was so obvious. I had been in Sarneth for several months, but still, it didn’t do to lose track of shady doings in Calcors--it was too close to Landers Hall.

  Out loud I said, “Ragnar’s still magistrate of Torana Province, right?” Lemara nodded, and I continued, “I’ll send him word about this.” And he’d move on it, quickly too, I warranted. Ragnar was a former king’s guard--and peasant before he earned his commission. I wondered if Lemara remembered that.

  “That won’t be necessary. I’ll send it to him tomorrow with my fastest messenger,” Lemara said quickly.

  I smiled. “Still, I’ll have a word with him about it. He’s a good man, but it’s always difficult, delivering such a summons to someone as high at court as Sullay. Ragnar should know he has our support.”

  “Indeed.” Lemara seemed transfixed with his hands as he twiddled his thumbs over his ample gut. He wouldn’t meet my gaze, and I knew, even though I had no proof other than my intuition, that he and Sullay were secret cohorts. The chamber stank of duplicity. God, stank--I was starting to sound like Merius’s witch, babbling about auras and odd smells and inklings itching in her big toe. I shook myself and straightened in my chair.

  “I heard an odd rumor about the House of Landers.” Lemara still stared at his twirling thumbs.

  “And what would that be?”

  “Whitten wasn’t seen at the feast apparently--several have remarked on his absence.” He finally glanced up and met my gaze, his eyes gleaming like candied plums stuck in doughy mounds of flesh.

  “Oh, that.” I shook my head. “Lemara, you know how Whitten is--likely sleeping off his latest binge in a haystack with a milkmaid on each arm. He‘ll come skulking back when his coin runs out.”

  “Has he been gone this long before? It’s been a fortnight at least since the feast . . .”

  “He was gone a month one time--we had the tenants, the hounds, everyone out looking for him. I thought he’d met with an accident in the woods. You know where he was?”

  “Where?”

  “At an inn down the coast--he got caught up in a lucky card game, won some coin, then took up with some wench, and next thing he knew a month had gone by. I could have throttled him.”

  “I bet. Well, I just thought I’d mention it, see if you wanted any help finding him.”

  “If you or your men happen to spot him, send him home. I have tasks for him, if he’s not too far in his cups to count properly.”

  “Will do.”

  “Thank you."

  A knock interrupted us. "Sorry to bother you, sir," said the young guard, "but Sir Aquiltine is here. It seems his fields won't grow--he said the new shoots should have sprouted a fortnight ago."

  "What's that to do with me?" Lemara demanded.

  "They suspect a witch or warlock cursed it, sir. Seems there's been other signs--a spate of sour milk and young animals born dead."

  "All right--tell Sir Aquiltine I'll be down in a moment. Sorry, Mordric, I should take care of this." Lemara rose and offered his grimy paw to shake. I tried not to grimace at the greasy feel of his soft skin. God knew where his hand had been.

  "I’d best be on my way now as it is," I said, restraining myself from saying anything about the Aquiltine 'curse.' Sir Aquiltine was a tight-fisted, evil-tempered wretch--I could think of a long list of people who might have been tempted to salt his fields, and nary a witch or warlock among them. "I have much to do at Landers Hall, and it close to eventide,” I added aloud. I resolved then to send Randel here after I returned to court. Between us, he and I had managed to secretly foil almost every witchcraft trial in Silmer Province during the last decade, at least the ones we heard about beforehand. I couldn't stop such idiocy in all of Cormalen, but God forbid I allow it to happen in my own province now that I was head minister.

  Chapter Five--Eden

  Landers Hall, Silmer Province, Eastern Cormalen
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  April, 3 years ago

  My eyes still closed, I stretched and then sank into the warmth of the feather bed, the linen so smooth against my bare skin that it tingled. Not even the court linens were this fine. I’d tricked Talia into ordering these sheets for all the Landers beds from a particular weaver in southern Sarneth known for the rich density of his work. Then I listened to Mordric rage about how much Talia had spent on the household while he was away in Sarneth. Now he wouldn‘t sleep on anything else.

  I rolled over on my side, relishing the feel of the sheet. Suddenly, I was in a swath of light, blinding light. What time was it, anyway? Shielding my eyes with one hand, I glanced toward the foot of the bed. The light poured through a crack in the bed curtains. It had to be nine in the morning, probably closer to ten. Why hadn’t Bridget brought my breakfast yet? And why was my bed at a strange angle? The windows were on the left side of my bed, not at the foot.

  I turned over again to get out of the light, then gave a sharp intake of breath. Mordric lay on the far side of the bed, his back to me.

  “You fool,” I muttered to myself. “I knew this was going to happen.” I climbed out of bed and padded naked and shivering across the cold floor to the enclosed alcove that held the washstand, chamber pot, and hip bath. My muscles were sore when I moved, and I grinned to myself. It was a welcome feeling, the kind of soreness I remembered from swimming in the rough sea after a tempest when I was thirteen and then coming home to a hot bath. I had gotten a scolding from the housekeeper for sneaking off with the boys to do something so dangerous, but it was the bath I remembered best, especially that first moment in the hot water.

  When I returned to bed, I leaned over and put my hand on Mordric’s shoulder, somewhat surprised he was still asleep. He always woke at dawn, and I had expected he would chase me away before the servants came. Judging from the lukewarm water in the washstand ewer, the servants had long since come and gone. Thank God we’d drawn the bed curtains last night--otherwise they would have seen me